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Wednesday, 29 June 2016

July 1st is Canada Day.This is the holiday in which we celebrate the birth of Canada by getting
stuck in traffic for hours and hours and throwing firecrackers at each
other.Canadians are a hardy lot.

I want to be serious for a moment and give some thought as to
how this country was born (definitely a breech birth with lots of screaming.)

Canada became a country in 1867.I wasn’t at the original Fathers of Confederation gig in PEI.But I suspect it went something like this.

Father 1 of Confederation: “So.Do we all want to band together as one
country and get ourselves universal healthcare?Pass the hootch.”

Father 2 of Confederation:“Yeah, okay, eh.Sounds
good.Pass the hootch.”

Father 3 of Confederation:“Snore….”

Meanwhile, the Mothers of Confederation were busy doing
useful things like making bannock and throwing venison on the barbie.And when they found out…well, let me just say
there was hell to pay.

“You bozos didn’t include a Caribbean Island??Come on Mildred…Abigail.We’re buying a trailer in Florida.”

Because you see: Canada is cold.It is particularly cold during the months of
winter, which can fiendishly usurp months from autumn and spring, and hold them
ransom until summer.

And then, just to be contrary, the guys with the hootch made
Ottawa the capital of Canada.

Why did they choose Ottawa?Apparently they were afraid the Yanks might capture the capital if they
put it in some desirable place like Toronto.(Too close to the border, with great shopping and restaurants.)

I’m told that Ottawa and Moscow are considered the worst
places to be posted if you are an Ambassador.This is because they are the two most northern capitals in the world…well,
capitals of any country to which humans might actually want to go.

Personally, I think this is a great exaggeration.No one wants to go to Ottawa and Moscow.

Okay, Okay. Ottawa
can be a pretty place in summer.Thing
is, it is held ransom by Jack Frost most of the rest of the year.Look at a map. Ottawa is dangerously close to the Arctic Circle.(In actual fact, so are Aurora and Newmarket.If you’re wondering why your commute into
Toronto takes so long…)

In hindsight, I figure the Fathers of Confederation did a pretty
good job after all. Since 1867, Canada has never
been invaded by Americans.We have
universal health care.And best of all,
we get rid of our politicians by sending them to Ottawa every winter.

Peter James,
internationally celebrated and phenomenally successful creator of crime
fiction, recipient of many honours including the vaunted Diamond Dagger
from the British Crime Writers' Association, visits the bookshop to
introduce the twelfth entry in his gripping series featuring Detective
Superintendent Roy Grace of Brighton, Love You Dead.

"Peter
James's Roy Grace is a main contender for the title of crown of UK
police detectives...[his] series is going from strength to strength.
Full marks for readability, plot, character, sense of place and, perhaps
above all, an attractive sympathy displayed by the author for his many
characters, major and minor." --Maxine Clarke, Eurocrime

"Peter
James has penetrated the inner workings of police procedures, and the
inner thoughts and attitudes of real detectives, as no English crime
writer before him."--Marcel Berlins, The Times

Mr. James, a highly entertaining raconteur, will discuss his craft and his fascinating career in the vivid company of Melodie Campbell, former Executive Director of Crime Writers of Canada and author of the delightful, award-winning Goddaughter mystery series.

Join us for a rollicking evening with Peter James and Melodie Campbell, Wednesday June 29 at A Different Drummer Books. Admission is free, but please contact us to reserve a seat, at (905) 639 0925 or diffdrum@mac.com. Thank you!

Monday, 20 June 2016

Just in time for Father's Day, here's a 10 point quiz to help you remember if you are a DAD:

1. Do you own at least one painted rock paperweight?

2. Do you know all the cheapest restaurants in town?

3. Does your night life involve Children's Tylenol?

4. Would you sell your soul for a sitter on Saturday night? How about your first born?

5. Do you habitually run over unidentified plastic action figures when mowing the grass?

6. Have you ever gone miles out of your way on vacation to find a clean washroom?

7. Do you jump when any little voice yells "Dad!"

8. Have you ever encountered "The Phantom Piddler?" In the car? On your pants?

9. Have you ever prompted your boss to "say the magic word?"

10. Does your concept of an ideal vehicle include sound-proof glass between the front and back seats?

How to Score: (Not THAT kind of score...)

0
to 2: Nope, not a Dad. Although it's possible to know where the cheap
restos are and locate clean washrooms, failure to answer No. 4 with a
resounding "YES!!YES!!" is a dead giveaway.

3-10. Yup. Dad material. Get ready for another painted rock paperweight this weekend.

But
there is a bright side to this career. The Dad in this house once
stunned an entire room of professionals playing Trivial Pursuit, with
the correct answer to 'Portuguese for 'open''. He learned it from
Sesame Street.

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

This post was my single most popular humour
column/stand-up routine (with appropriate gestures) back in the days
when I wrote under Funny Girl.

(With apologies to gorillas.)

Who needs a telephone booth? My guy can step into any car and become: ROAD WARRIOR!

There
must be a primitive instinct that overcomes a male each time he gets
behind the wheel of a car, and which also makes him forget that he
actually got beyond the evolutionary stage of the giant African
gorilla.

Because every day, millions of men the world
over climb into their twenty-first century chariots of steel to hear a
voice from the heavens proclaim, “Gentlemen, start your engines!” At
which point all lads who possess a scrap of testosterone drop into
first, stomp on the gas and lay a trail of smoking rubber in an attempt
to beat the other blokes away from the lights.

I
can remember traveling in my guy’s car down Gerrard street one day,
when a red Camaro, which was traveling about two miles an hour faster
than we were, pulled up beside us and tried to pass. Whereupon, the man
I promised to love and honour until death do us part – or at least
until the next tax year – stepped on the gas and roared up the street
doing a wheelie, in case, of course, the Camaro might just DARE to cut
in front.

The
driver of the red Camaro, not wishing to appear shortchanged on his
giant gorilla genes, immediately dashed up alongside, and proceeded to
make extremely rude hand gestures while shifting gears and controlling a
skid, all at the same time.

The
two cars jerked their way down Gerrard, both drivers screaming at each
other through closed windows, until my own true love slammed on the
brakes, effectively blocking two lanes of traffic and the entire Jarvis
Street intersection. He then got out of the car.

Now
the occupants of the Camaro were the sort of people one would expect to
see driving a red Camaro down Gerrard: guys with names like Carlos and
Guido, whose idea of a fun Saturday night is counting the notches on
their machine guns. And if I hadn’t started screaming and fainting in
the manner of Fay Wray with King Kong (another gorilla) we would
probably all still be there; my guy standing out in the middle of the
intersection flailing his arms, ready to “teach them a lesson.”